Weird Weather in Thailand

Michael Tobis, editor-in-chief of Planet3.0 and site cofounder, has always been interested in the interface between science and public policy. He holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences where he developed a 3-D ocean model on a custom computing platform. He has been involved in sustainability conversations on the internet since 1992, has been a web software developer since 2000, and has been posting sustainability articles on the web since 2007.

Despite near-neutral ENSO conditions, the seasonal outlook for Thailand is rather bizarre, according to a correspondent, who points to this article in the Bangkok Post:

Unusually heavy rainfall will continue across the country well into this winter, the Thai Meteorological Department says.

Unlike typical weather patterns in the past, high pressure fronts from China have not been moving into Thailand, said a senior official at the department.

Weather this winter looks like it will be more affected by low pressure fronts from the southern part of the country, resulting in severe rainfall, she said.

Bangkok on Wednesday suffered heavy downpours in many areas.

Several provinces in the South and Central Plains have also experienced heavy rains recently.

The unusually heavy rain “is not a result of El Nino or La Nina”, the official said, adding that it will probably continue well into the winter, with especially strong downpours in December.

“The [rain] levels will gradually reduce but will still remain above the seasonal average … over the past 30 years,” she added.

Texas remains warmer and drier than is typical for this time of year but nothing to write home about as yet. But the AGU meeting in San Francisco looks likely to get drenched and just a bit further north the flooding potential looks serious.

How is the winter shaping up where you are? Anything weird?

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The weather here in England, (Scotland in the the north of the UK is slightly different) had a drought leading up to April which led to the introduction of water use restrictions since the winter months are expected to be wet and fill the reservoirs. almost as soon as the measures were introduced it started raining and during the summer we had two months with the highest ever recorded rainfall for those months. Over the last week we have had homes flooded in various parts of England, despite the first half of November being dry. Last week the rain was very heavy with some parts seeing a month's rain falling in one day. That, with the fact that the ground was sodden caused the flooding.

But there is no point in claiming that it is caused by AGW as the sceptics would just point to the dry spring.

Otherwise yet another fab water year for the wheat ranchers. I predict the 2013 crop of soft white winter wheat will again be high yielding in grain and the grain will, for the fourth ear in a row, fetch high prices.

Speaking of lousy weather, consider this (perhaps I should have put it under religion per youtube):

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), a skeptic of man-made global warming, is set to take over the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology in the 113th Congress.

On Tuesday afternoon, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced that the Republican Steering Committee had recommended Smith as the new chairman. The full House GOP caucus will vote on all chairmanships Wednesday and is expected to ratify the steering panel's choices."

We thought Ralph Hall would be the end of laughably inappropriate leaders chairing the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Wrong. Lamar Smith, a climate change denier is taking over. Do you think he's influenced by the money he received from Koch Industries and the oil and gas industries?

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